Reviews

Anesthesia by Kenny Fries

courtneyfalling's review

4.0

I bought this poetry collection for myself when I visited Ithaca, NY last autumn, from the same bookstore where I owned The Face from, so it felt like an appropriate book to read next. I originally noticed the medical imagery, then when I took it off the shelf saw it had been signed before I was even born and still had a poster advertising that event, which, objectively, is cool! Even better, the poems traverse links between physical disability, queerness, and sexual power dynamics, in fascinating and meaningful ways. There are sections where Fries writers Monet persona poems, which personally were my favorite. This certainly isn't the style of poetry I would typically choose to read, but I really, sincerely enjoyed being proven wrong here!

blreed's review

4.0

Sometimes I buy slim volumes of poetry at McKay’s on a whim, a handful at a time, because they’re $1.50 and I feel that I can afford to take a chance on serendipity. Anesthesia was one of those books. I had never heard of Kenny Fries, but something about the medical title caught my eye and seemed relevant in 2020, a year in which I thought a lot about bodies, medicine, sickness, and surgery, for a variety of reasons. The poems in Anesthesia deal with physical disability and AIDS, and with sexuality and love shared between gay men. They are physical, sensual pieces of writing that complicate ideas of what a sick or disabled body can do; they contain bittersweetness, acceptance, joy, and violence.